Earths Bigger, Older Planetary Cousin

Earth's Bigger, Older Planetary Cousin Ever since astronomers first began searching out planets around other stars, theyve found thousands of planet candidates and confirmed more than a thousand as actual worlds. There could be billions of worlds out there. The tools of the search are ground-based telescopes, the Kepler Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, and others. The idea is to look for planets by watching for slight dips in the light of a star as the planet passes in its orbit between us and the star. This is called the  transit method because it requires that a planet transit the face of the star. Another way to find planets is to look for tiny shifts in the stars motion that are caused by a planets orbit. Detecting planets directly is very difficult because stars are quite bright and planets can get lost in the glare.   Finding other Worlds The first exoplanet (a world circling other stars) was discovered in 1995. Since then, the rate of discovery grew as astronomers launched spacecraft to look for distant worlds. One fascinating world that theyve found is called Kepler-452b. It circles a star similar to the Sun (a G2  star type) that lies about 1,400 light-years from us in the direction of the constellation Cygnus. It was found by the Kepler telescope, along with 11 more planet candidates orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. To determine the planets properties, astronomers conducted observations at ground-based observatories. Their data confirmed the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, refined the size and brightness of its host star, and pinned down the size of the planet and its orbit Kepler-452b was the first near-Earth-sized world found, and it orbits its star in the so-called habitable zone. Thats a region around a star where liquid water could exist on the surface of a planet.  It is the smallest planet ever found in a habitable zone. Others have been larger worlds, so the fact that this one is closer to our own planets size means astronomers are close to finding Earth twins (in terms of size).   The discovery does NOT tell whether or not there IS water on the planet, or what the planet is made of (that is, whether it is a rocky body or a gas/ice giant). That information will come from further observations. Yet, this system does have some interesting similarities to Earth. Its orbit is 385 days, while ours is 365.25 days. Kepler-452b lies just five percent farther away from its star than Earth does from the Sun.  Ã‚   Kepler-452, the parent star of the system is 1.5 billion years older than the Sun (which is 4.5 billion years old). Its also a bit brighter than the Sun but has the same temperature. All these similarities help give astronomers a comparison point between this planetary system and our own Sun and planets as they seek to understand the formation and history of planetary systems. Ultimately, they want to know how many habitable worlds are out there.   About the Kepler Mission The Kepler space telescope (named for astronomer Johannes Kepler) was launched in 2009 on a mission to spy out planets around stars in a  region of the sky near the constellation Cygnus. It performed well until 2013 when NASA announced that failed flywheels (that keep the telescope pointed accurately) were failing. After some research and help from the scientific community, mission controllers devised a way to keep using the telescope, and its mission is now called K2 Second Light. It continues to search out planetary candidates, which are then re-observed to help astronomers determine the masses, orbits, and other characteristics of the possible worlds. Once Keplers planet candidates are studied in detail, they are confirmed as actual planets and added to the growing list of such exoplanets.

When to Use On-Reading and Kun-Reading for Kanji in Japanese Writing

When to Use On-Reading and Kun-Reading for Kanji in Japanese Writing Kanji are  characters used in modern Japanese writing, equivalent to the Arabic letters in the alphabet used in English, French, and other Western languages. Theyre based on written Chinese characters, and along with hiragana and katakana, kanji make up all of written Japanese.   Kanji was imported from China around the fifth century. The Japanese incorporated both the original Chinese reading and their native Japanese reading, based on what was then an entirely spoken version of the Japanese language.    Sometimes in Japanese, the pronunciation of a particular kanji character is based on its Chinese origin, but not in every instance. Since theyre based on an ancient version of the Chinese pronunciation, on-readings usually bear little resemblance to their modern-day counterparts.   Here we explain the difference between on-reading and kun-reading of kanji characters. Its not the easiest concept to understand and is probably not something beginning students of Japanese need to worry about. But if your goal is to become proficient or even fluent in Japanese, it will be important to understand the subtle differences between on-reading and kun-reading of some of the most used kanji characters in Japanese.   How to Decide Between On-Reading and Kun-Reading Simply put, on-reading (On-yomi) is the Chinese reading of a kanji character. It is based on the sound of the kanji character as pronounced by the Chinese at the time the character was introduced, and also from the area it was imported. So an  on-reading of a given word might be quite different from modern standard Mandarin. The kun-reading (Kun-yomi) is the native Japanese reading associated with the meaning of a kanji.   Meaning On-reading Kun-reading mountain () san yama river ( sen kawa flower () ka hana Almost all kanji have On-readings except for most of the kanji that were developed in Japan (e.g. è ¾ ¼ has only Kun-readings). Some dozen kanji dont have Kun-readings, but most kanji have multiple readings.   Unfortunately, there is no simple way to explain when to use  On-reading or Kun-reading. Those learning Japanese need to memorize how to  correctly stress syllables and proper  pronunciation  on an individual basis, one word at a time.   On-reading is usually used when the kanji is a part of a compound (two or more kanji characters are placed side by site). Kun-reading is used when the kanji is used on its own, either as a complete noun or as adjective stems and verb stems. This is not a hard and fast  rule, but at least you can make a better guess.   Lets take a look at the kanji character for æ ° ´ (water). The on-reading for the character is sui and the Kun-reading is mizu. æ ° ´ (mizu) is a word in its own right, meaning water. The kanji compound æ ° ´Ã¦â€ºÅ"æâ€" ¥(Wednesday) is read as suiyoubi. Kanji On-reading Kun-reading - ongaku(music) - otosound - seiza(constellation) - hoshi(star) - shinbun(newspaper) -atara(shii) (new) - shokuyoku(appetite) - ta(beru)(to eat)